Growth in a time of external imbalances

Abstract Globalization and financial integration have increased in the last three decades giving rise to cumulated large external imbalances. The question we address in this paper is whether economic growth can be affected by these external imbalances. We estimate an augmented growth equation with the external stock position of the countries measured by the net foreign asset position. Unlike previous literature, we use non-parametric methods that capture non-linearities and heterogeneity, and apply them to a sample that includes 106 developed and developing countries for the period 1983-2011. Contrary to the neoclassical theory, we find that improvements in the external position foster grow…

Social progress around the world: trends and convergence

Abstract This paper assesses social progress in 139 countries over the period 1995–2017 following the framework proposed by the Social Progress Imperative; a notable contribution is a composite index allowing for comparisons across countries and over time. The index considers 45 raw indicators covering three fundamental pillars of social progress: basic human needs, foundations of well-being, and opportunities. The results point to a marked improvement in social progress all over the world from the mid-1990s, although they also depict a highly polarized world. Cross-country convergence patterns are also investigated, revealing a reduction in the differences in social progress, largely drive…

Social capital and economic growth in Europe: nonlinear trends and heterogeneous regional effects

After two decades of academic debate on the social capital-growth nexus, discussion still remains open. Most of the literature so far, however, has followed the one-size-its-all approach, neglecting that the great disparities across geographical units might have implications in this relationship. This article analyzes the role of two social capital indicators on the growth of 237 European regions in the period 1995–2007 by implementing a set of both parametric and non- parametric regressions. Whereas the former impose a linear functional form for the parameters, the latter relax this assumption providing a flexible frame in which the functional form is given by the data. The technique also …

Formal and Informal Institutions as Drivers of Life Satisfaction in European Regions

For several years the attention of economists has focused mostly on income and related issues. This tendency changed during the last decade, when citizen’s well-being became a topic of increasing interest. In that regard, the appearance of new databases providing reliable data on variables such as happiness or life satisfaction spurred the number of empirical contributions. This chapter contributes to this literature by analysing the links between informal, formal institutions and life satisfaction for a wide sample European regions.

Informal, formal institutions and credit: complements or substitutes?

AbstractThis paper analyses the relationship between informal institutions measured by social trust and the provision of private credit. Research on the trust–finance relationship abounds, although most of it is confined to the micro-level, with far fewer contributions from a wide, cross-country perspective. Considering a sample of 119 economies in the period 1993–2015, results suggest that social trust is an important determinant of private credit, and that its effects are transmitted indirectly via some particular aspects of the quality of economic-judicial institutions. In addition, and contrary to previous findings in related areas, substitutive effects for informal and formal instituti…

On the drivers of successful crowdfunding: The case of the platform Verkami

This article analyzes the determinants of successful crowdfunding initiatives using a sample of 5,251 projects from the reward-based Spanish platform Verkami. In contrast to most of the literature that has measured success with a dichotomous variable, we approach success with a continuous one, namely the ratio of achievement, which is measured as the obtained resources over the total amount requested by the promoter. We consider a set of potential determinants of success, which are theoretically well-grounded and cover a variety of spheres related to project features. Results suggest that factors related to the signaling theories such as partnership, having previous experience and interact…

Is full banking integration desirable?

The aim of this paper is to analyze the links between banking integration and economic development for a sample of OECD countries. We measure banking integration considering state-of-the-art indicators that measure not only how open a banking system is but also its degree of connectedness with other banking systems. In a second stage, we plug these indicators in a model of economic growth, also controlling for other relevant variables considered by the economic growth literature. In contrast to previous initiatives, this second stage explicitly takes into account the differing levels of economic development of the countries in our sample, since the benefits of enhanced banking inte- gration…

Quality of government and economic growth at the municipal level: Evidence from Spain

This paper analyzes the relationship between quality of government and economic growth at the municipal level in 1,820 Spanish municipalities during the period 2008–2015. At this level of dis- aggregation, the literature is virtually non-existent due to severe data constraints. To address this limitation, we proxy institutional quality with a measure of local government efficiency, which provides an accurate indicator of how good local authorities are at managing their budgets. This variable is expected to be highly correlated with other more traditional quality of government indicators such as corruption. After computing our measure, we then use it in a growth regression framework. We find…

Well‐being in European regions: Does government quality matter?

This paper constructs a composite indicator of well‐being for 168 European regions with data from 10 well‐being domains. Regions are then ranked according to their respective levels of well‐being. The ranking reveals notable differences across European regions, which follow a marked spatial pattern. As a second contribution, the paper analyses the impact of the quality of government on well‐being. Results show a positive association robust to several specifications and scenarios. Moreover, the effects of quality of government on individual well‐being dimensions are identified, finding positive links with education, jobs, income, safety civic engagement, access to services, housing and commu…

Regional income convergence in Colombia: population, space, and long-run dynamics

We examine the trajectory of regional income dynamics in Colombia. Using data on all 33 Colombian departments from 2000 to 2016, we employ extensions of (spatial) Markov chains, space-time mobility measures, along with a fully weighted version of the distribution analysis approach. By considering these extensions, our analysis enables us to answer questions such as whether the role of spatial context influences the distributional dynamics of Colombian departments, or the magnitude of the moderating effect of department’s population. The inclusion of additional measures such as the asymptotic half-life of convergence provides additional results, informing on how long it would take to reach t…

Creative industries and productivity in the European regions. Is there a Mediterranean effect?

Does social capital matter for European regional growth?

Abstract This paper analyzes the role of different elements of social capital in economic growth for a sample of 85 European regions during the period 1995–2008. Despite the remarkable progress that social capital and European regional economic growth literatures have experienced over the last two decades, initiatives combining the two are few, and entirely yet to come for the post-1990s period. Recent improvements in data availability allow this gap in the literature to be closed, since they enable the researcher to consider the traditionally disregarded Eastern and Central European (ECE) regions. This is particularly interesting, as they are all transition economies that recently joined t…

Is the European Social Progress Index robust? Implications for the design of European Union regional Cohesion Policy

The European Social Progress Index (EU-SPI) is a composite index launched by the European Commission in 2016 to assess social progress. It is constructed using non-economic indicators, and is intended to serve as a tool for European regional policies. This paper shows that the 2020 release of the index is robust to multiple alternative designs, and thus suitable for policymaking. The EU-SPI and gross domestic product per capita (GDPpc) are positively correlated, although they are in no way substitutes. These findings suggest that the EU-SPI could complement the GDPpc as an instrument to determine eligibility and achieve a more citizen-oriented allocation of European Cohesion Policy funds.

Does happiness drive tourism decisions?

This research examines the role that happiness plays in affecting tourism flows. While most previous studies are country-specific, our analysis is performed with panel data on 142 countries from 2005 to 2019. This allows us to implement a structural gravity model that includes both domestic and international tourism flows, which is a novel approach in this branch of the literature. Our empirical strategy enables us to correctly identify happiness when multilateral resistance terms are included. The results show that happiness at a destination is a significant tourist attractor, although the link follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. This suggests that tourists associate happiness with the q…

Measuring well-being in Colombian departments. The role of geography and demography

This paper provides a composite indicator of well-being for the 33 Colombian departments in the year 2016. The indicator is built by adapting the well-known OECD Better Life Index to the regional level, and includes the dimensions of income, health, education, safety, housing, environment, labour market, and civic engagement and governance. As to the methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques are employed, an approach which enables a comparison of well-being across departments and the construction of rankings. The results yield several take-away messages. First, there are substantial disparities in well-being across Colombian departments. Second, de…

Well-being and the Great Recession in Spain

This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Applied Economics Letters on 2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2018.1545076 This letter assesses the impact of the Great Recession on well-being in Spanish provinces using two alternative composite indicators of objective well-being that include somewhat different dimensions. Whereas the crisis notably eroded economic well-being, its impact on overall well-being – which in addition to economic dimensions also includes non-economic ones – was imperceptible. This result points to the need to carefully define and assess well-being in empirical analyses.